General Music Chat

The guys wont be happy with me posting this cut but what the heck.
Our studio trip.......... well lets just say it has been a learning experience for all of us. The boys are not at all happy with the results so far and opinions run the gamut from "After we get the next two gigs out of the way we go back and fix the levels and mistakes the way we want" To "scrap the whole stinking project and start again"
Anyway, I had an urge to put up some music.................... so.......here it is.

Listening to it just through laptop speakers, I say:

Go back and fix the levels.
Bring the strumming guitar down, bring the bass up, slap a swampy Delay on the lead lines.

(I couldnt really hear the bass, but I'm assuming theres bass on it? - little 'treble happy' speakers on this.)

Dont even think about scrapping it.

Thanks for the listen and comments.
The overall CD is "bass happy" as you put it. But yes the rhythm guitar is pretty sharp.
The guys feel the overall levels need to come up in comparison to the vocals to more accurately reflect our live sound. ( we are a rock band after all )
Yes, Eric is great on the bass. I'm sorry he does not stand out on this track for you. That too can be fixed. I like the dry lead. Though I have experimented with some delay I just cant seem to get it set to just the right level.

Funny, after I posted this I got a call from the studio. After we talked about the CD and the bands concerns I sent a message to Ray.
He's all for making the best out of this run as soon as we wrap up the two gigs we have scheduled this month.
For that much I am thankful and pleased.

This is a quantum leap in sound quality over anything you have ever posted here. There's only two things I would suggest, bring the bass up a little, not much. I envision an organ backing track (B-3?) all the way through this song, perhaps a church organ tone. It needs just a little more sound in places. I love the simplicity of your band Sans. You may not be totally satisfied, I understand that, but this is WAY BETTER and you really don't have to do too much to make this version GREAT.

Thanks for the listen and comments.
The overall CD is "bass happy" as you put it. But yes the rhythm guitar is pretty sharp.
The guys feel the overall levels need to come up in comparison to the vocals to more accurately reflect our live sound. ( we are a rock band after all )
Yes, Eric is great on the bass. I'm sorry he does not stand out on this track for you. That too can be fixed. I like the dry lead. Though I have experimented with some delay I just cant seem to get it set to just the right level.

Funny, after I posted this I got a call from the studio. After we talked about the CD and the bands concerns I sent a message to Ray.
He's all for making the best out of this run as soon as we wrap up the two gigs we have scheduled this month.
For that much I am thankful and pleased.

How many guitar tracks do you have on there?
Sounds good to me, but it feels like theres a little to much 'space' in there.

p.s.
I've yet to record anything that I was totally happy with.
I'm not sure that mythical creature exists.

Good job George. This is why you never ever mix the same day you record. Fresh ears always hear different things. I'm sure you guys will fix it up so that everyone is happy.

Recording on a working person's budget requires some compromises, but you CAN get results that will please you. I've produced over 120 tracks in the past 23 years and although a few were clunkers most have exceeded my expectations.

Sounds good to me George.

If you want to spice it up some. In the intro add another guitar part. If you have tracks and time. Set your amp up really gainy and hot to where it will break up into feedback. Play the root note of your chords up an octave, hold the note with the guitar volume down and then roll the volume up til the guitar feedsback, this can add another texture to the sound and contrast the straight strumming pattern you are doing.

Your leads are coming along good also. When you play leads you might want to mimic the melody that your singer is doing, this will ussually stay in a 4-5 note area, spice it with a few slow bends.

Im with Jimmy, in my experiences its best to come back later with fresh ears and mix. After a day of cutting tracks yor ears and your engineers ears are wiped out, make a rough mix so you can make notes of what you want to do.

Back to guitar parts. You can add little 3 note chords an octave higher and just use them in your build up points in the song. Im in a 3 piece band but if you listen to some of the stuff I have posted like Pearl Jams Alive I may throw on 3-5 more guitar tracks and play the chords in 3 different positions on the neck just to build my guitar parts. When I was younger I was very adamant about only playing on recordings what I can reproduce live, but at this point in my life I wish I had gone back and spiced up songs with multiple guitar parts. If you listen to a lot of classic rock recordings you hears guys doing this.

I know Im rambling here, but I am impressed with you guys development as players. Keep On Rockin!

Wow, good advice John. Don't give away all the secrets

Everyone gave a lot of advice already on the instrumentations, so I will stick to the recording and engineering:

1. The starting guitar(s). It sounds like an acoustic and electric overlay (or attempt to mimic such?).. the problem is that both, or the patch that creates the effect leave a flat, dead tone. There's a nice tone in there, but it's flattened by the EQ, making it sound lifeless. I can't find a better way to explain it, but would suggest either re-processing the signal and giving it some depth, or maybe recording separate acoustic and electric tracks and engineering them from there.

2. The vocals have that stereo delay, sounds like about 25ms. Most people used this in the past to generate a fuller and almost doubling effect, but in this recording, the delay is too long and actually separates the vocals between the two channels, and it sounds bad (IMO). (It may also be a delayed dampening on the reverb effect, hard to tell)

3. yeah the bass is a tad low, but on my headphones (they are balanced fairly well), it's almost at the right level.

4. The guitar solo(s) are both flat, they need more vibrato / emphasis. Sorry to rag on that, but it's important, as it's hurting the song.

5. At 2:09 the vocals are holding a note and attempt to drop and rise, but waver ever so slightly off key. It's unfortunately noticeable. Also occoured to me that it sounded like two unique vocal tracks attempting to double up, where they didn't match up exactly at that point? It happens again at 3:53-3:55

Other than that, the arrangement, song, drums, bass arrangement - all sound well balanced.

Hope you don't take anything I said personally, I'm just being honest and trying to help!

It's a fantastic day in Paradise

Good job George ! I look forward to hearing your finished product. I love this song .


And its another day in Paradise !!!

It sounds great George I am happy for you guys keep doing what you are doing and it will be a natural progression. That Nomad sounds kickass Bro. all that clean part in the intro needs is a little chorus that will give it a little more depth. What I like to do when you have an acoustic and electric clean, strumming the same thing is to pan the electric hard to one side and acoustic on the other at about 9 and 3. Your singer has a very pleasent tonal quality to his voice! One more thing it can be a little strange hearing your music (especially for the vocalist) coming back at you for the first time in the monitors it is always best to give it a little time before judgeing yourself! Us musicians tend to be very hard on ourselfs.

4. The guitar solo(s) are both flat, they need more vibrato / emphasis. Sorry to rag on that, but it's important, as it's hurting the song.

I thought the same thing. Really flat solo that, personally, I would take out of the song. Either do it with all the feeling in the world, or don't do it. But overall, just a lot of flat sounding instruments.

But Fisherman bob is right - that's the best thing you've put up by a long way. Big improvement and you should be happy with that kind of quantum leap in quality.

I can't comment on the song... started to lose my interest and roll my eyes when it got to the Jesus parts, but you all know I'm an a$$hole about God and religion anyway.

Sans, I really liked the song composition. The singer has a really good voice and as whole I think the song is great.

There was a small nuance I picked up and couldn't put my finger on it at first so on my second run, I played the song while tapping my finger to the beat of the hats thu the whole song and I'm pretty sure are some spots where drum beat lags between the floor tom and the hats, slowing the whole rythem down ever so slightly. I think this caused a little uncertainty in the strumming because that's what I first suspected until I tried to keep in time with the drummer. Did your drummer use a click track?

You have no idea how envious I am of you. You're achieving something you love! I'm looking forward to hearing more recordings from you guys. Keep it up!

I really appreciate all your time and comments guys.
When I have a little more time to really delve into the suggestions I may have more questions but we have a gig rehearsal tonight.
The rhythm guitar parts were re recorded using Rays Line6.
He had not used it in quite a while so it was a grab n go situation.
Ray was unhappy with the vocal effects so I foresee some tweaking in that department.
I am a little disappointed you did not like the solo. I did, and after listening to it several times with breaks in between, I still do. The bends and vibrato did not roll off as strong as I usually play them. But I felt it was much more of a natural work as well, but that's life.
Colors, were cool brother. I appreciate you take the time to approach me as a musician, despite our differences.

Thanks again.
6 more songs to go.

Hey Sans-

I was listening to a collection of scratch tracks I've been working on, and noticed today that with one of them, I did a very similar solo, meaning I used no vibrato or emphasis on the notes. What I had done to make it "feel out" was to add a little chorus, and a 350ms delay, with approx 1 feedback loop (don't recall fade settings) at about 50-60% Volume. It really made the solo come out. Might be worth tooling around with on yours.